Forgiveness

For many of us, at the beginning of our Christian journeys, we thought of and spoke often about the radical forgiveness of a God who has been greatly sinned against. I remember myself going on and on about God’s …Read More

There is a small detail in the Hebrew text of the Joseph narrative that is like the masterstroke of a great artist in a masterpiece painting. When Moses describes the envy and jealousy of Jacob’s severely dysfunctional family …Read More

As Christians, how we treat other people speaks louder to the world regarding the authenticity and validity of our beliefs than the doctrines we teach, the creeds we confess, or even the moral and good lives we try to …Read More

The Gospels depict the arrest and trial of Jesus in a way that shows us not only the insensibility of His accusers, but also His own steadfast faithfulness to the will of God through suffering and humiliation. Our Lord’s …Read More

It had been twenty years since Jacob had deceived his father and received the blessing Isaac had intended to give Esau. It had been twenty years since Jacob fled for his life from a furious brother intent on killing …Read More

We need daily pardon and daily protection as well as daily provision. So after Jesus taught us to pray, “give us today our daily bread,” He also taught us to pray, “and forgive us our debts, as we also have …Read More

Anyone who has ever attended a Sunday school class knows that Jonah was the man who was eaten alive by a fish and then vomited out three days later. But that’s about the extent of most people’s understanding …Read More

Someone recently said to me: “The older we get the harder it is to ask someone’s forgiveness.” I am not sure if that’s necessarily true, but the older and, perhaps, more stubborn we become it certainly seems more …Read More

I remember opening the door of my office at the medical center and being greeted by a young, beautiful, desperate woman, who had been referred to me for psychotherapy. She was single. She had been living a carefree, and sexually …Read More

Why do relationships have to be so complicated? Why do good friends get “wrapped around the axle” with each other? Why do family members become so alienated they may not speak to one another for years? It is because we …Read More

Our Lord and Savior expects forgiveness to be constant, not occasional. In Matthew 18:21–22, Peter came to Jesus with a faulty view of employing forgiveness. He suggested merely “seven” acts of forgiveness as the maximum of mercy to …Read More

“By this,” Jesus said, “all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Here Jesus gives us an apologetic we seem to have lost sight of. One of the blessings …Read More

Some cultures have no central government. Their only social organization is the family, including the extended family that constitutes a clan, and the organization of clans into a tribe. So in the absence of laws, a police force, and a …Read More

Children are big sinners, they are just small in size. Recently I was watching my wife’s grandchildren play together (I have a personal aversion to being old enough to have grandchildren). Her grandson was playing with his younger sister …Read More

In the early years of the 1950s the phenomenon of broadcast television was beginning to sweep America. In these early days, however, it was still a small minority of American households that proudly owned a television set. At this time …Read More